"And that," said Desire later in the day as she related her experiences to the professor, "that was the idea with which I left them! I shan't have to teach again, shall I, Benis?"
Her husband smiled. "No. I should think more would be a superfluity."
"They'll say I'm a heathen. I know they will. You don't realize how serious it is. Think how your prestige will suffer."
"It has suffered already. Only yesterday Mrs. Walkem, the laundress, told Aunt that your—er—peculiarities were a judgment on me for 'tryin' to find out them things in folkses minds which God has hid away a-purpose.'"
"But I'm in earnest, Benis—more or less."
"Let it be less, then. My dear girl, you don't really think that Bainbridge disturbs me?"
"N-no. But it disturbs me. A little. I am so different from all these people, your friends. And being different is rather—lonely."
"It is," he agreed. "But it is also stimulating."
"I used to think," she went on, following her own thought, "that I was different because my life was different. I thought that if I could ever live with people, just as we live here, with everything normal and everyday, the strangeness would drop away. But it hasn't. I am still outside."
"Everyone is, though you are young to realize it. Our social life is very deceiving. Most of us wake up some day to find ourselves alone in a desert."
Desire swung the hammock gently with the tip of her shoe. "Is not one ever a part of a whole?"
"Socially, yes. Spiritually—I doubt it. It is some-thing which you will have to decide for yourself."
"I don't want to be alone," said Desire rebelliously. "It frightens me. I want to have a place. I want to fit in. But here, it seems as if I had come too late. Every-one is fitted in already. There isn't a tiny corner left."
Spence's grey eyes looked at her with a curious light in their depths.
"Wait," he said. "You haven't found your corner yet. When you do, the rest won't matter."
"But people do not want me. I had a horrid dream last night. I was wandering all through Bainbridge and all the doors were open so that I might go in anywhere. I was glad—at first. But I soon saw that my freedom did not mean anything. No one saw me when I entered or cared when I went away. I spoke to them and they did not answer. Then I knew that I was just a ghost."
"I'm another," said a cheerful voice behind them. "All my 'too, too solid flesh' is melting rapidly. Only ice-cream can save me now!" Using his straw hat vigorously as a fan Dr. Rogers dropped limply into an empty chair. "Tell you a secret," he went on confidentially. "I had two invitations to Sunday supper but neither included ice-cream. So I came on here."
"Very kind, I'm sure," murmured Benis.
"How did you guess?" began Desire, and then she dimpled. "Oh, of course,—Benis wasn't in church."
"How did he know that?" asked Benis sharply. "He wasn't there, was he?"
The doctor looked conscious. Desire laughed. "His presence did seem to create a mild sensation," she admitted.
"Well, you see," he explained, "in the summer I am often very busy—"
"In the cellar," murmured Benis.
"But no one happened to need me today and, besides, my freezer is broken. This, combined with—"
"An added attraction," sotto voce from the professor.
"Oh, well—I went, anyway."
"I saw you there," said Desire, ignoring their banter. "I thought you might have gone for the sermon. The subject was one of your specialties, wasn't it?"
The doctor twirled his hat.
"Better tell him what the subject was," suggested Benis unkindly.
"Didn't you listen?" Desire's inquiring eyebrows lifted. "That's one of the things I don't understand about people here. Church and church affairs seem to play such an important part in Bainbridge. Nearly everyone goes to some church. But no one seems at all disturbed about what they hear there. Is it because they believe all that the minister says, or because they don't believe any of it?"
Her hearers exchanged an alarmed glance.
"What do you want them to do?" said John uneasily. "Argue about it? Besides, this morning was very exceptionally hot."
"I don't want to be any more heathen than I have to be," went on Desire, "but I must be terribly heathen if what Mr. McClintock said this morning is right. He was speaking of pain, physical pain, and, he said God sent it. I always thought," she concluded naively, "that it came straight from the devil."
"Healthy chap, McClintock!" said Benis lazily. "Never had anything worse than measles and doesn't remember them."
"What I'd like to know," said the doctor, "would be his opinion after several weeks of—something unpleasant. He might feel more like blaming the devil. What does he think doctors are fighting? God? By Jove, I must have this out with McClintock! I know that, for one, I never fight down pain without a glorious sense of giving Satan his licks."
"But you did not even listen."
"I'm listening now."
"And no one else seemed to object to anything he said. I heard some of them call it a 'beautiful discourse' and 'so helpful.'"
Under her perplexed gaze the two Bainbridgers were clearly uncomfortable.
"It's because you don't really care what you hear from the pulpit," said the girl accusingly. "You have your own beliefs and go your own ways. Another man's views, good or bad, make no difference."
"S-shish! 'ware Aunt Caroline!" warned the professor, but Desire was too absorbed to heed.
"Why, if one actually believed half of what was said this morning," she went on, "the world would be a beautiful garden with half its lovely things forbidden. 'Don't touch the flowers' and 'Keep off the grass' would be everywhere. It seems such a waste, if God made so many happy things and then doesn't like it if people are too happy."
"Not many of us suffer from too much happiness," muttered Benis.
"Or too much health," echoed the doctor. "I'd like to tell McClintock that if people would expect more health, they'd get more. The ordinary person expects ill-ness. They have a 'disease complex'—that's in your line, Benis. But just supposing they could change the idea—Eh? Supposing everybody began to look for health—just take it, you know, as a God-intended right? I'd lose half my living in a fortnight."
"John Rogers!" Aunt Caroline's voice fell with the effect of sizzling hailstones upon the fire of John's enthusiasm. "If you must talk heresy, there are other places beside my garden to do it in."
"I was merely saying—"
"I heard what you were saying. And although it takes a great deal to surprise me, I am surprised. Such doctrines I consider most dangerous, highly so. If you are thinking of setting up as a faith healer, the sooner we know it the better. Desire, my dear, you might see Olive about tea. Tell her not to forget the lemon. I do not know what I have done to deserve a maid called Olive," she sighed, "but the only alternative was Gladys. And Gladys I could not endure. As for illness, I am surprised at you, John Rogers. I was not in church owing to a severe headache, but I know the sermon. It is one of Mr. McClintock's very best. If you had not gone to sleep in the middle of the first point you would have heard the mystery of pain beautifully explained. A wonderful preacher. If he wouldn't click his teeth."
The professor shuddered.
"Benis acts so foolishly about it," went on Aunt Caroline. "He insists that the clicking makes him ill. But why should it? At the same time, if one of the Elders were to suggest, tactfully, to Mr. McClintock that he have the upper set tightened it might be well. It would at least" (with grimness) "do away with the trivial excuses of some people for not attending Divine service."
Her graceless nephew was understood to murmur something about "too hot to fight."
"As for Mr. McClintock's ideas," pursued Aunt Caroline, "they are quite beautiful. The first time he gave the deathbed description which comprises part of this morning's discourse he had us all in tears. I mean all of us who were sufficiently awake to realize the fact that it was a deathbed. His description of the last agony has clearly lost nothing in poignancy, for Desire came home quite pale. I wonder if you have noticed, Benis, that Desire is looking somewhat less robust? Doctor, now that she is not here—"
"Now that she is not here, we will not discuss her," said Spence firmly.
"Indeed! And may I ask why you wish to stop me, Benis? I am speaking to a qualified medical man, am I not? But there," with resignation, "I never can expect to understand the present generation. So lax on one hand, so squeamish on the other. Surely it is perfectly proper that I, her Aunt—oh, very well, Benis, if you are determined to be silly."
"Now with regard to the Rev. McClintock," put in the doctor hastily. "Do you really think that he is sufficiently in touch with modern views to—to—oh, dash it! what was I saying?"
"You were interrupting me when I was telling Benis—"
"Oh yes. I remember. We were talking about new ideas. And you suggested heresy. But you must remember that, in my profession, new ideas are not called heresy—except when they are very new. What would you think of me if I doctored exactly as my father did before me?"
"When you are half as capable as your father, young man, I may discuss that with you."
"One for you!'' said Benis gleefully.
"Well, leaving me out then, and speaking generally, why should a physician search continually for fresh wisdom, while a minister—"
"Beware, young man!" Aunt Caroline raised an affrighted hand. "Beware how you compare your case with that of a minister of the Gospel. That further wisdom is needed in the practice of medicine, anyone who has ever employed a doctor is well aware. But where is he who dare add one jot to Divine revelation?"
"No one is speaking of adding anything. But surely, in the matter of interpretation, an open mind is a first essential?"
"In the matter of interpretation," said Aunt Caroline grandly, "we have our ordained ministers. How do you feel," she added shrewdly, "toward quacks and healers who, without study or training, call themselves doctors? Do you say, 'Let us display an open mind'?"
"Time!" said Benis, who enjoyed his relative hugely—when she was disciplining someone else. "Here comes Desire with the tea."
"What I really came out to say, Benis," resumed Aunt Caroline, "is that I have just had a long distance call—Desire, my dear, cream or lemon?—a long distance call from Toronto where, I fear, such things are allowed on Sunday—Doctor, you like lemon, I think?—a call in fact from Mary Davis. You remember her, Benis? Such a sweet girl. She is feeling a little tired and would like to run down here for a rest. Desire, my dear, have you any plans with which this would interfere? I said that I would consult you and let her know. You are very careless with your plate, Benis. That Spode can never be replaced."
Fortunately her anxiety for the family heirloom absorbed Aunt Caroline's whole attention. If she noticed her nephew's look of anguished guilt and his friend's politely raised brows she ascribed it to his carelessness in balancing china. Desire's downcast eyes and stiffened manner she did not notice at all.
"Well, my dear, what do you say? Shall we invite Mary?"
"It depends on Benis, of course," said Desire quietly.
"Benis? What has Benis to do with it? Not but that he enjoyed having her here last time well enough. It is the privilege of the mistress of the house to choose her guests. I hope you will not be slack in claiming your privileges. They are much harder to obtain than one's rights. My dear sister was careless. She allowed Benis's father to do just as he pleased. Be warned in time."
"Do you wish Miss Davis to visit us, Benis?" Desire's hands were busy with her teacup. Her eyes were still lowered.
"I have no wishes whatever in the matter," said the professor with what might be considered admirable detachment.
"Tell Miss Davis we shall be delighted, Aunt," said Desire.
Time, in quiet neighborhoods, like water in a pool, slips in and out leaving the pool but little changed. Only when one is waiting for something dreaded or desired do the days drag or hasten. Miss Davis was to arrive upon the Friday following her telephone invitation. That left Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Desire found them very long.
Nothing more had been said of the personality of the expected visitor. Desire did not ask, because she felt sure that, when she had seen, she would know without asking. At present there was little enough to go upon. The guest's name was Mary. Her hair was yellow. She had visited in Bainbridge before. She and Benis had been friends. Beyond this there was nothing save the professor's carelessness with the family Spode—an annoying device for diverting attention in moments of embarrassment.
Against this circumstantial evidence there was the common-sense argument that the real Mary of the professor's romance would hardly be likely, under the circumstances, to propose herself as his aunt's guest.
Desire was inclined to take the common-sense view. Especially as just about this time she came upon the track of another Mary, also with yellow hair, who presented possibilities. The most suspicious thing about this second Mary was that neither the professor nor his friend Dr. Rogers had been able to tell Desire her first name. Now in Bainbridge everyone knows the first name of everyone else. One does not use it, necessarily, but one knows it. So that when Desire, having one day noticed a gleam of particularly golden hair, asked innocently to "whom it might belong" and was met by a plain surname prefixed merely by "Miss," she became instantly curious. From other sources she learned that the golden-haired Miss Watkins had been employed as a nurse in Dr. Rogers' office for several months and that her Christian name was Mary Sophia.
This also, you will see, was not much to build upon. But Desire felt that she must neglect nothing. The menace of the unseen, unknown Mary was beginning seriously to disturb her peace of mind. She determined to see the doctor's pretty nurse at the earliest opportunity.
The comradeship between herself and Rogers had prospered amazingly. She had liked the young doctor at first sight; had discerned in him something charmingly boylike and appealing. And Desire had never had boy friends. The utter frankness of her friendship was undisturbed by overmuch knowledge of her own attractions, and the possibility of less contentment on his side did not occur to her. Feeling herself so much older, in reality, than he, she assumed with delicious naivete, the role of confidant and general adviser. What time she could spare from Benis and the great Book she bestowed most generously upon his friend.
During the four dragging days of waiting the appearance of Miss Davis, she had found the distraction of Dr. John's company particularly helpful. And then, after all, Miss Davis did not arrive. Instead, there came a note regretting a very bad cold and postponing the visit until its indefinite recovery. The news came at the breakfast table.
"How long," asked Desire thoughtfully, "does a bad cold usually last?"
"Not long—if it's just a cold," answered Benis with some gloom. "But," more hopefully, "if it is tonsillitis it lasts weeks and if pneumonia sets in you have to stay indoors for months."
Aunt Caroline looked over her spectacles.
"You sound," she said, "as if you wish it were pneumonia."
But in this she was, perhaps, severe. Her nephew was really not capable of wishing pneumonia for anyone, not even a possible Nemesis by the name of Mary. He merely felt that if such a complication should supervene he would bear the news with fortitude. For, speaking colloquially, the professor was finding himself very much "in the air." Desire's mind upon the subject of this guest in particular and of Marys in general, had become clouded to his psychological gaze. He had thought at first that his young secretary was jealous with that harmless sex jealousy which may almost as well be described as "pique." But, of late, he had not felt so sure about it. He did not, in fact, feel quite so sure about any-thing.
Desire was changing. He had expected her to change, but the rapidity of it was somewhat breath-taking. In appearance she had become noticeably younger. The firm line of her lips had taken on softer curves; the warm white of her skin was bloomy like a healthy child's; shadow after shadow had lifted from her deep grey eyes. But it was in her manner that the most significant difference lay. Spence sometimes wondered if he had dreamed the silent Desire of the mountain cottage. That Desire had stood coldly alone; had listened and weighed and gone her own way with the hard confidence of too early maturity. This Desire listened and weighed still, but her confidence was often now replaced by questioning. In this new and more normal world, her unserved, unsatisfied youth was breaking through.
But, if she were younger, she was certainly not more simple. If the grey eyes were less shadowed, they were no less inscrutable. If the lips were softer, their serenity was as baffling as their sternness had been. If she seemed more plastic she was not less illusive. Nimble as were his mental processes, the professor was discomfited to find that hers were still more nimble.
Meanwhile the Book was getting on. No excursions into the land of youth were allowed to interfere with Desire's idea of her secretarial duties. If anyone shirked, it was the author; if anyone wanted holidays it was he. If he were lazy, Desire found ways of making progress without him; if he grumbled, she laughed.
The day set apart for the arrival of Miss Davis had been voted a holiday and the professor hoped that her non-appearance would not interfere with so pleasant an arrangement. But Desire's ideas were quite otherwise. Sharply on time she descended to the library with her note-book ready. The professor felt injured.
"Must we really?" he said. "Yes. I see we must. But mind! I know why you are doing it. I thought of your reason in the night when I was unable to sleep from overwork. You are hurrying to get through so that we may leave this sleepy town. Insatiable window-gazer! You wish to look in bigger windows."
"Do I?" Desire turned limpid eyes upon him and tapped her note-book. "Then the sooner we get on with this chapter on 'The Significance of the Totem' the better. But, if you can excuse me this afternoon, Dr. John has just 'phoned to ask me if I can call on the eldest Miss Martin. He says that her state of mind is her greatest trouble. And it does not react to medicine."
The professor looked still more injured.
"We can't begin the totem chapter unless we are going to go on with it," he objected. "I don't see why John doesn't get a secretary of his own."
"He has a nurse," said Desire smoothly.
"Er—oh yes, of course. Well, perhaps we had better begin—but why does he want you to call on Miss Martin?"
Desire looked self-conscious, a rare thing for her. "Well, you see, I have an idea about Miss Martin. It may be entirely wrong but John thinks it worth trying. You knew that her fiance was killed just before the armistice, didn't you? John says she seemed stunned at the time but kept on, the way most women did. She helped him fight the 'flu' all that winter without taking it her-self. But she was one of the first to come down with it when it returned this Spring. She got through the worst—and there she stays. John says that if she doesn't begin to pick up soon there won't be enough of her left to bother about."
"And your idea?"
"You might laugh," said Desire with sudden shyness.
The professor promised not to laugh.
"My idea is this. To find out the real reason for her not getting better and treat that."
"Very simple."
"Yes, because John already knows the real cause. He says she doesn't get well because she doesn't want to. In the old days people would say her heart was broken. And it seems such a pity, because, if what everyone says is true, she would have been frightfully unhappy if she had married him. (Desire became slightly incoherent here.) They weren't suited at all. He was a musician, a derelict who hadn't a thought in the world for anything but his violin. Aunt Caroline says the engagement was a mystery to everyone. She says that probably Miss Martin just offered to take him in hand and look after him (she used to be very capable) and he hadn't backbone enough to say she couldn't. They say that the only time anyone ever saw a gleam in his face was the day he went away to the war. Then he was killed. And now she won't get well because she can't forget him."
"And that is what you call a 'pity'?"
"Well, not exactly that." She hesitated. "If he had cared for her as she thought he did, it wouldn't seem such a waste. But he didn't. Everybody knew it—except herself."
"Everybody may have been wrong."
"Yes. But that is just the point. They weren't. He died as he had lived without a thought for anything but music. I happened to hear a rather wonderful story about his dying. Sergeant Timms, who drives the baker's cart, was in the next cot to his, in the hospital. And my idea is that if he could just tell her the story—just let her see that he went away without a thought—she might get things in proportion again and let herself get well."
"I see. Well, my dear, it is your idea. Is John going to drive you out?"
"No. He wanted to. But I'll have to find the Sergeant and take him with me."
"In the baker's cart?"
"What a good idea! I would never have thought of that. And I've always wanted to ride in a baker's cart. They smell so crusty."
So it was really the professor's fault that Bainbridge was scandalized by the sight of young Mrs. Spence jogging comfortably along through the outskirts in a bread cart driven by the one-time Sergeant Edward Timms.
"And him so silly with havin' her," said Mrs. Beatty (who first noticed them), "that he didn't know a French roll from a currant bun."
Indeed we may as well admit that the gallant Sergeant confused more things that day than rolls and buns. The latter part of his orderly bread route was strewn thickly with indignant customers. For the Sergeant was a thoroughgoing fellow quite incapable of a divided interest.
"You can tell me the details of the story as we go along," Desire said, "so that I shan't be interrupting your work at all."
The dazzled Sergeant agreed and immediately delivered two whites instead of one brown and forgot the tickets.
"Well, you see," he said, "it was this way. We went over there together, him and me. And we hadn't known each other, so to speak, not intimate. You didn't know him yourself at all, did you?"
Desire shook her head.
"He was a queer one. Willin' as could be to do what he was told, but forgettin' what it was, regular. Just naturally no good, like, except with the fiddle. I will say, that with that there instrument he was a Paderwooski—yes, mam! By the time our outfit got into them trenches the boys was just clean dippy about him. They kind of took turns dry-nursin' him and remindin' him of the things he'd got to do, and doin' them for him when they could put it over. I'll tell you this—it's my private suspicion that more than one chap went west tryin' to keep the bullets offen him! Not that they were crazy about him exactly, but that fiddle of his had got them goin'. 'Twasn't only the fiddle he played on, either. Anything would do. That there chap could play you into any kind of dashed mood he liked and out of it again. Put more pep into you with a penny whistle than Sousy's band or a bottle of rum. Ring you out like a dishrag, he could, and hang you out to dry. Gee! He could do anything—just anything!"
(It was here that the bun episode occurred.)
"Well,—he got buried. Parapet blown in. And when they got him out he was—hurt some." (The Sergeant remembered that one must not shock the ladies.)
"That was all I would have known about it," he went on, "only we happen to turn up in hospital together. I wakes up one mornin' and finds him in the next cot. He was supposed to be recoverin' but was somehow botchin' the job.
"'Where's the fiddle?' I says to him one day when I was feelin' social. And then, all of a minute, I guessed why he wasn't patchin' up like what was his duty. You see, that b-blessed parapet hadn't had any more sense than to go and spoil his right arm for him—the one he fiddled with, see?"
(Here the Sergeant delivered one brick loaf instead of two sandwich ditto.)
"Well, they kept sayin' there weren't any reason he shouldn't mend up. But he didn't. And one night—" the Sergeant pulled up the cart so quickly that Desire almost fell out of it. "You won't believe this part," he said in a kind of shamefaced way.
"Try me."
"Well then, one night he called to me in a kind of clear whisper. 'Bob!' he says, 'I've got my fiddle!'
"'Sure you have, old cock,' says I.
"'And my arm's as good as ever,' says he.
"'Sure it is! Better,' says I.
"'Listen!' says he.
"And I listened and—but you won't believe this part—"
"I will."
"Well, I heared him playin'! Not loud—not very near but so clear not one of the littlest, tinkly notes was lost. I never heard playin' like that—no, mam! And the ward was still. I never heard the ward still, like that. I think I went to sleep listenin'. I don't know."
The Sergeant broke off here long enough to deliver several orders—all wrong. Desire waited quietly and presently he finished with a jerk.
"When I woke up in the mornin', I was feelin' fine—fine. The first thing I did was to look over to the next cot. But there was a screen around it.... I ain't told the story to his folks because he hasn't got any," he added after a pause. "And I kind of thought it mightn't comfort his fiancy any—it not bein' personal, so to speak."
Desire frankly wiped her eyes. (It was fortunate that no one saw her do this.)
"It's a beautiful story," she said.
"Well, if you think I ought to tell, I will. But if his fiancy says, 'Was there any message?' hadn't I best put in a little one—somethin' comforting?"
"Oh—no."
"All right. Couldn't I just say that at the end he called out 'Amelia!'?"
"Oh, Mr. Timms!"
"Not quite playin' the game, eh? Well, then I won't. But it does seem kind of skimp like.... There's the doctor waitin' at the gate."
It seemed to Desire, waiting in the garden, that the Sergeant was taking an unnecessarily long time in telling his story. She had thought it best that he should be left alone to tell it, so the doctor had gone on to visit another patient, promising to call for her as he came back.
Desire waited. And, as she waited, she thought. And, as she thought, she questioned. What had Benis meant when he had said, in that whimsical way of his, "Well, my dear, it is your idea"? If he had not approved of it, why hadn't he said so? It had seemed such a sensible idea. An idea of which anyone might approve.... Why also had Sergeant Timms been so reluctant to approach Miss Martin with the bare (and, Desire thought, beautiful) truth? Because he feared it would rob her of an illusion? But illusions are surely something which people are better without?—aren't they?
The Sergeant came at last, twirling his cap and looking hot.
"Well?" asked Desire nervously.
"She'd like you to go in, Mrs. Spence, if you can spare the time. She took it quite quiet. 'Thank you, Sergeant,' says she. And never a question."
The two looked at each other and Desire saw her own doubt plainly reflected upon the honest gaze of Robert Timms.
"I'll go in," she said. "The doctor will take me home."
In the invalid's room there was only quietness. Miss Martin sat in her chair by the window; her plain, thin face had not sought to turn from the searching light. Desire felt her heart begin to beat with the beginnings of an understanding as new as it was revealing.
"Don't be sorry," Miss Martin's reassurance was instant. "I am glad to know.... I always did know, anyway ... and it did not make any difference ... If you can understand."
Desire nodded. "He must have been very wonderful," she said. In that new and nameless understanding she forgot that only that morning she had referred to the dead musician as a "derelict" and "no good for anything."
"Yes," said the invalid musing. "Not quite like the rest of us. And I see now that he never would have been. I used to think—but the difference was too deep. It was fundamental.... I feel ... as if he knew it ... and just wandered on."
"But you?" Desire ventured this almost timidly. The quietness seemed to intensify in the room. Then the invalid's voice, serene, distant.
"I? ... There is no hurry.... He has his fiddle, you see...." Miss Martin smiled and the smile held no bitterness. So might a mother have smiled over a thoughtless child who turns away from a love he is too young to value.
Desire was silent.
"I did not know love was like that," she said after a long pause. "But perhaps I do not know anything about love at all."
The older woman looked at her with quiet scrutiny.
"You will," she said.
After that they talked of other things until the doctor came to take Desire home.
"Queer thing," he said as he threw in the clutch, "I believe she looks a little better already. That was an excellent idea of yours."
"It was anything but an excellent idea." Desire's tone was taut with emotional reaction. "Fortunately, it did no harm. But I don't know what you were thinking of to allow it."
"Allow it?" In surprised injury.
Desire did not take up the challenge. She was looking, he thought, unusually excited. There was faint color on her cheek. Her hands, generally so quiet, clasped and unclasped her handbag with an irritating click. Being a wise man, Rogers waited until the clicking had subsided. Then, "What's the matter?" he asked mildly.
"John," said Desire, "do you know anything about love?"
"I see you do," she added as the car leapt forward, narrowly missing a surprised cow. "So perhaps you will laugh at my new wisdom. I learned something to-day."
The car was giving trouble. For a few moments its eccentricities required its driver's undivided attention. Even when it was running smoothly again, he appeared preoccupied. But Desire was seldom in a hurry. She waited until he was quite ready.
"You learned something—about love?" asked John gruffly.
"Yes. Have you a sore throat? Your voice sounds all dusty. I used to think," she went on dreamily, "that love was something that came from outside. That it depended on things. But it doesn't depend on anything and it's not outside at all."
"And you found this out, today?"
"Yes. I saw it, in Miss Martin. It was quite plain. What idiots we were to pity her!"
"Did we pity her?"
The question was mechanical. John was not thinking of Miss Martin. He was thinking of the faint rose upon Desire's half-turned cheek. Desire blushing!
"Of course we did. And we had no right. And there is no need."
"Don't let's do it, then," said John. Out of the corner of his eye he saw, with a quickening of his pulse, how stirred she was. And his wonder mounted. That Desire, of the cool, grey eyes and unwarmed smile, should speak of love at all was sufficiently amazing, but that she should speak of it with tinted cheek was a miracle.
Yet this, he quickly remembered, was something which he had himself foreseen. He had never really accepted Spence's theory that early disillusion had seriously poisoned the lifesprings natural to her age. Her awakening had been certain. He had warned Spence that she would wake! He felt all the exultation of a prophet who sees his prophecy fulfilled. But common sense urged caution. To frighten her now might be fatal. He tried to bring his mind back to Miss Martin.
"At least," he said, "our intentions were admirable. We were trying to help her."
"We were being very impertinent," affirmed Desire. "Benis told me so this morning."
"Benis told you?" in surprise.
"Well, he didn't exactly tell me. But I am sure he wanted to."
This was too subtle for the doctor. There were times when he frankly admitted his inability to bridge Desire's conversational chasms. He was often puzzled by the things she did not say.
"What was Benis thinking of," he said irritably, "to let you come out in that bread cart?"
Desire laughed. "I hope he was thinking of the Significance of the Totem. But I'm almost sure he wasn't."
"Does he ever think of anything but that blessed book of his?"
"I'm afraid he does—occasionally."
"You mean," with sharpened interest, "that he isn't quite as keen on it as he used to be?"
"I mean that he doesn't like me to work too hard."
"Oh, I see. Perhaps he does not wish you to work too hard for me, either?"
Desire folded her hands upon her bag and looked primly into space.
"He is a very considerate employer," she remarked mildly. "Take care—you nearly hit that hen!"
"Oh, d—bother the hen!"
"And he never swears," added Desire with gentle dignity.
They drove for a mile or so without remark and then, Desire, who had something to say, reopened the conversation without rancour.
"Don't be cross," she said. "As a matter of fact Benis does swear sometimes. He is nervous, you know. I sometimes wonder if it is all due to shell shock, or whether it is a result of his—er—other experience."
For the second time that day the car skidded. And for the second time, its unfortunate driver was called upon to give it his whole attention. Desire waited.
"I mean his former love affair," said she when conversation was again possible.
"His—I don't know," said John weakly.
Desire looked sceptical.
"Don't fancy I want to question you," she said with haughtiness. "But I don't see how you can help knowing. You are his doctor. And his friend, too. He must have told you. Didn't he?"
"He mentioned something—er—that is to say—"
"Oh, don't hesitate! Don't fancy that I mind. I don't, of course. And I am not curious. Although any-one might be curious. I won't ask you questions. I am only mildly interested. It is entirely for his own good that I should like to know if she is quite as wonderful as he thinks. Is she, John?"
"I—I don't know," stammered the wretched John.
Desire nodded patiently.
"You mean you don't know how wonderful he thought her? But did you think her very wonderful, John?"
"No, I didn't"
"You thought her plain?"
"No, I—I didn't think of her at all."
"You mean that you found her insignificant?"
The doctor made a sound which Desire was pleased to interpret as assent.
"I'm not surprised," said she earnestly. "Because, from the description Benis gave, I felt sure he was exaggerating. Not that it makes any difference, because, if he thought she was like that, what she really was like didn't matter. That," with plaintive triumph, "is one of the things I learned today."
The doctor said nothing. It was the only thing which he felt it safe to say.
The professor was smoking under the maples by the front steps when the car drove up. He looked very cool, very comfortable and very sure of himself—entirely too sure of himself, in John's opinion. John, who at the moment, felt neither cool nor comfortable, and anything but sure, observed him with envy and pity. Envy for so obvious a content, pity for an ignorance which made content possible.
Spence, on his part, seemed unaware of a certain tenseness in the attitude of both Desire and John, a symptom which might have suggested many things to a reflective mind.
"You look frightfully 'het up,' Bones," he said. "And your collar is wilting. Better pause in your mad career and have some tea."
"Thanks, can't. Office hours—see you later," jerked the doctor rapidly as he turned his car.
"What have you been doing to John to bring on an attack of 'office hours' at this time of day?" asked Spence as he and Desire crossed the lawn together. "Wasn't the great idea a success?"
"John thinks it was."
It was so unlike Desire to give someone else's opinion when asked for her own that the professor said "um."
"I suppose," she added stiffly, "it is a question of values."
"Something for something—and a doubt as to whether one pays too dear for the whistle? Well, don't worry about it. If you could not help, you probably could not hurt, either.... I had a letter from Li Ho this afternoon."
"A letter!" Desire's swift step halted. Her eyes, wide and startled, questioned him. "A letter from Li Ho? But Li Ho can't write—in English."
"Can't he? Wait until you've read it. But I shan't let you read it, if you look like that."
"Like what? Frightened? But I am frightened. I can't help it. I know it's foolish. But the more I forget—the worse it is when I remember."
"You must get over that. Sit here while I fetch the letter. Aunt is out. I'll tell Olive to bring tea."
Desire sat where he placed her. It was very pleasant there with the green slope of the lawn and the cool shadow of trees. But her widely opened eyes saw nothing of its homely peace. They saw, instead, a curving stretch of moonlit beach and a trail which wound upwards into thick darkness. Ever since she had broken away, that vision had haunted her, now near and menacing, now dimmer and farther off, but always there like a spectre of the past.
"It hasn't let me go—it is there always—waiting," thought Desire. And in the still warmth of the garden she shivered.
The sense of Self, which is our proudest possession, receives some curious shocks at times. Before the mystery of its own strange changing the personality stands appalled. The world swings round in chaos before the startled question, "Who am I—where is that other Self that once was I?"
Only a few months separated Desire from her old life in the mountain cottage and already the mental and spiritual separation seemed infinite. But was it? Was there any real separation at all? That ghost of herself, which she had left behind on the moonlit beach, was it not still as much herself as ever it had been? Behind the shrouding veil of the present might not the old life still live, and the old Self wander, fixed and changeless? It was a fantastic idea of Desire's that the girl she had been was still where she had left her, working about the log-walled rooms, or wandering alone by the shining water. This Self knew no other life, would never know it—had no lot or part in the new life of the new Desire. Yet in its background she was always there, a figure of fate, waiting. Through the pleasant, busy days Desire forgot her—almost. But never was she quite free from the pull of that unsevered bond.
Until today there had been no actual word from the discarded past. Dr. Farr had not replied to Desire's brief announcement of her marriage. She had not expected that he would. And for the rest, Spence had arranged with Li Ho for news of anything which might concern the old man's welfare.
"Here is the letter," said Benis, breaking in upon her musing. "You will see that, if the clear expression of thought constitutes good English, Li Ho's English is excellent."
He handed her a single sheet of blue note paper, beautiful with a narrow purple border and the very last word in "chaste and distinctive" stationery.
"Honorable Spence and Respected Sir"—wrote Li Ho—"I address husband as is propriety but include to Missy wishes of much happiness. Honorable Boss and father is as per accustomed but no different. Admirable Sami child also of strong appetite when last observed. Departure of Missy is well to remain so. Moon-devil not say when, but arrive spontaneous. This insignificant advise from worthless personage Li Ho."
Desire handed back the letter with a hand that was not quite steady. The professor frowned. He had hoped that she was beginning to forget. But, with one so unused to self-revelation as Desire, it had been difficult to tell. He had thought it unwise to question and he had never pressed any comparison between her life as it was and as it had been. Better, he thought, to let all the old memories die. They were, he fancied, not very tellable memories, being compounded not so much of word and deed as of those more subtle things without voice or being which are no less terribly, evilly, real and whose mark remains longest upon the soul. Even complete understanding would not help him to rub out these markings. Only that slow over-growing of life, which we call forgetfulness, could do that. She was so young, there was still an infinite impulse of growth within her and in the new growth old scars might pass away.
Desire noticing the new seriousness of his face was conscious of a pang of guilt. It seems such crass ingratitude to doubt for one instant the stability of the happiness he had given her. Had he not done more than it had seemed possible for anyone to do? From the first she had overflowed with silent gratitude to him. There was wonder yet in the apparent ease with which he had sauntered into the prison of her life and, with a laugh and jest, set her free. He had shown her, for the first time in her life, the blessedness of receiving. Those whose nature it is to give greatly are not ungenerous to the giving of others. It is a small and selfish mind which fears to take, and Desire was neither small nor selfish. She had hidden the thanks she could not speak deep in her heart, letting them lie there, a core of sweetness, sweeter for its silence.
Who shall say when in this secret core a wonderful something began to quicken and to grow? So fine were its beginnings that Desire herself knew them only as new bloom and color, 'violets sweeter, the blue sky bluer'—the old eternal miracle of a new-made earth.
She had called this new thing friendship and had been content. Only today, when she had for an instant glimpsed life through the eyes of Agnes Martin, had there seemed possible a greater word. In that quiet room another name had whispered around her heart like the first breath of a rising wind. She had not dared to listen. Yet, without listening, she heard. And now, through Li Ho's letter, that other Self who would have none of love, stretched out a phantom hand and beckoned.
The professor took the letter from her gravely, retaining, for an instant the unsteady hand that gave it.
"Aren't you able to get away from it yet?" he asked kindly.
"No. Perhaps I never shall. When the memory comes back I feel—sick. It is even worse in retrospect. When it was my daily life, I lived it. But now it seems impossible. Am I getting more cowardly, do you think?"
Spence smiled. "I hope you are," he told her. "When you lived under a daily strain you were probably keyed to a sort of harmony with it. Now you are getting more normal. Life is a thing of infinite adjustment."
"You think I could get 'adjusted' again if I had to?"
"You won't have to. Why discuss it?"
"Because it puzzles me. Why do I mind things more now than I did? I used to feel quite casual about father's oddities. They never seemed to exactly matter. But now," naively, "I would so much like to have a father like other people."
"That is more normal, too."
"I suppose," she went on, as if following her own thoughts, "what Li Ho calls the moon-devil is really a disease. Have you ever told Dr. John about father, Benis? What did he say?" The professor fidgeted. "Oh, nothing much. He couldn't, you know, without more data. But he thinks his periodical spells may be a kind of masked epilepsy. There are some symptoms which look like it. The way the attacks come on, with restlessness and that peculiar steely look in the eye, the unreasoning anger and especially the—er—general indications." The professor came to a stammering end, suddenly remembering that she did not know that last and worst of the moon-devil symptoms.
"It is hereditary, of course," said Desire calmly.
The professor jumped.
"My dear girl! What an idea."
"An idea which I could not very well escape. All these things tend to transmit themselves, do they not? Only not necessarily so. I seem to have escaped."
"Yes," shortly. "Surely you have never supposed—"
"No. I haven't. That's the odd part of it. I have never been the least bit afraid. Perhaps it's because I have never felt that I have anything at all in common with father. Or it may be because I have never faced facts. I don't know. Even now, when I am facing facts, they do not seem really to touch me. I never pretended to understand father. He seemed like two or three people, all strangers. Sometimes he was just a rather sly old man full of schemes for getting money without working for it, and very clever and astute. Sometimes he seemed a student and a scholar—this was his best mood. It was during this phase that he wrote his scientific articles and taught me all that I know. His own knowledge seemed to be an orderly confusion o>f all kinds of things. And he could be intensely interesting when he chose. In those moods he treated me with a certain courtesy which may have been a remnant of an earlier manner. But it never lasted long."
"And the other mood—the third one?"
"Oh, that Well, that was the bad mood. If it is a disease he was not responsible. So' we won't talk of it." Desire's lips tightened. "He usually went away in the hills when the restlessness came on. And I fancy Li Ho—watched."
"Good old Li Ho!"
Desire nodded. "I think now that perhaps I did not quite appreciate Li Ho. I should like to know—but what is the use? We shall never know more than we do."
"Not about Li Ho'. He is the eternal Sphinx wrapped in an everlasting yesterday. I suppose he did not have even a beginning?"
Desire smiled. "No. He was always there. He is one of my first memories. A kind of family familiar. Sometimes I think that if he had not been away the night my mother died she might have been alive still."
Spence hesitated. "You have never told me about your mother's death, you know," he reminded her gently.
"Haven't I?" Desire was plainly surprised. "Why—I thought you knew. That is a queer thing about you," she went on musingly, "I am always thinking that you know things which you don't. Perhaps it's because you guess so much without being told. My mother died suddenly—of shock. Her heart was never strong and the fright of waking to find a thief in her room proved fatal. It happened one night when Li Ho was away. We lived in Vancouver at the time and Li Ho often disappeared into Chinatown. He had all the Oriental passion for fan-tan. That night there was a police raid on his favorite gambling place and Li Ho was held till morning. It was always he who locked the doors and attended to everything at night. Perhaps it was known that he was away. But just what happened was never settled, for my father was found unconscious on the floor of the passage outside my mother's door. He couldn't remember anything clearly. The fact that there had been several previous burglaries in town and that there were valuables missing offered the only explanation."
The professor was silent so long that Desire added: "I'm sorry. I should have told you before."
"What difference would it have made?" He roused himself. "Tell me the rest of it. Did Li Ho think that your mother had been frightened by a—thief?"
"I suppose so," in surprise. "Li Ho blamed himself terribly. He said it was his fault. If they hadn't known he was in the cells all night they might have suspected him. He acted so queerly. But of course what he meant was that if he had been at home the thief would not have broken in."
"There were evidences of his having broken in?"
"There was a window open."
"And were any of the stolen things recovered."
"Not that I ever heard of. And yet, I think perhaps some of them were. I remember—" Desire paused and a painful flush crept into her cheek.
"Yes?" prompted Spence gently.
"One of the lost things was an old-fashioned watch belonging to mother. I used to listen to it ticking. And once, years after, I saw it. Father had given it to—a friend of his. So, you see, he must have got it back."
"I see." The professor was aware of a pricking along his spine. He looked at the unconscious face of the girl and ventured another question.
"Was your father injured at all?"
"His head was hurt. They did not know whether the thief had struck him or whether it was the fall. He had fallen just at the foot of the stairs. We lived in a bungalow, then, and as I was asleep in my little room under the eaves, it was thought that he had been trying to reach me—what is the matter?"
The professor had been unable to control an involuntary shudder.
"Nothing," he said. "Just nerves."
Desire's smile was wistful. "It isn't a pretty story," she said. "None of the stories I can tell are pretty. That's why I am different from other people. But I am trying. Perhaps I shall get to be more like them presently."
The professor banished his dark thoughts with an effort. "God forbid!" he said cheerfully. "And here comes tea!"